South Korea’s average ‘Net speed plunges 24%, iPhone blamed

How does the country with the fastest Internet on earth see a 24 percent …

In the course of three months during 2009, South Korea's average Internet connection speed dropped by a dramatic 24 percent. Think about the magnitude of the decline here: one of the world's most wired countries suddenly sees its overall Internet speeds reduced by a quarter over a few months while similarly positioned countries like Sweden, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong all saw speed increases.

What happened? Blame it on the iPhone.

According to Akamai's recent State of the Internet report, South Korea's bizarre Internet slowdown can largely be traced to the introduction of the iPhone in that country in November 2009. Akamai saw an explosion of unique IP addresses associated with a particular mobile operator (apparently KT, formerly known as Korea Telecom) soon after the phone's launch, indicating broad new iPhone usage.

Unfortunately, this particular mobile provider is slow. "As the average observed connection speed for this mobile provider was a fraction of that observed from wireline connections in South Korea," says the report, "we believe that this launch was likely responsible for the significant drop in South Korea's average undeserved connection speed in the fourth quarter [of 2009]."

That's... a lot of slow iPhones (well, slow iPhone service, at least). Still, despite a massive drop in average access speeds, Korea remains number one on the worldwide list, with an average of 11.7Mbps. The US, if you were wondering, is at 22nd place with 3.8Mbps.

Why are mobile speeds being grouped together with land line speeds? The data seems pretty useless averaged together. I hope this isn't what's been happening with all released statistics with averaged internet connection speeds. That'd be tragic.

Why are mobile speeds being grouped together with land line speeds? The data seems pretty useless averaged together. I hope this isn't what's been happening with all released statistics with averaged internet connection speeds. That'd be tragic.

This is worthless info as far as average internet speeds go. I can still go to the PC 방 down the street and download things at 5 MegaBYTES per second with no trouble. I know a shit ton of Koreans and none of them have an iPhone, either. It may be true that the wireless infrastructure sucks here (I've read that before this about the WiBro), but....come on. The iPhone is pretty damn prohibitively expensive here. From what I understand on an average contract the phone still costs around 1 Million Won up front (about $900). There aren't a zillion Koreans running around with them. Trust me.

Well, I live in Seoul and use an iPhone and from my point of view these statistics tell the truth. The speeds on KT's network as measured by Speedtest.net speak for themselves: about 900kbps download and always 56kbps upload. The upload speed never changes.

Definitely a misleading headline, and the story isn't too good about clearing it up, either. Oh well -- I guess it served its purpose. I clicked on it.

But it's not a misleading headline! The iPhone *is* being blamed for this statistical change. The headline couldn't be more clear and honest. It's even clear that it's not "each individual's own average net speed plunged", instead "South Korea's average net speed plunged."

There are plenty of times when poor headlines dominate news, but this is not one of those cases.

I can't fathom any reason why we would want to exclude wireless from the average. All the same reasons that fast land line broadband is important also applies to wireless.

For me, it's because it doesn't really tell you the whole picture. I have three computers and occasionally go to an "internet cafe." I have a second generation iPod Touch and use that for the internet all the time, too. There are open access points all over the damn country. You can literally go anywhere in this country that there is a store/restaurant and get wireless internet that's not from a tower. Internet is so cheap and people so honest (this is my guess as to why anyway) that wireless access points are always left open with the SSID broadcasting.

The average person - even in Korea - doesn't use wireless (from towers) internet. If you see somebody on their phone on a subway, train, or bus, chances are they are texting or playing a game.

Holding up wireless (from towers) access speed as all important is disingenuous even in Korea. People that haven't been here imagine this place as some technology mecha where everyone is a addicted to their technology, but it's not. People do look after their phones like they're their own children, but only for contact purposes.

I have never once used wireless internet (from a tower) from a phone. I don't know anybody that does on a consistent basis because even here I'm told it gets really expensive. The people that use the wireless access seem to be foreigners to the country and not Koreans.

This is worthless info as far as average internet speeds go. I can still go to the PC 방 down the street and download things at 5 MegaBYTES per second with no trouble. I know a shit ton of Koreans and none of them have an iPhone, either. It may be true that the wireless infrastructure sucks here (I've read that before this about the WiBro), but....come on. The iPhone is pretty damn prohibitively expensive here. From what I understand on an average contract the phone still costs around 1 Million Won up front (about $900). There aren't a zillion Koreans running around with them. Trust me.

It costs about the same in New Zealand, and only if we sign on for a ridiculous expensive plans ($60NZD per month with 10MB net cap if I remember correctly with $1.25NZD per MB over limit).

Also most of the phones in Korea can pick up ground level TV on their phones while getting to a source of information and internet access is trivially simple, rendering the need for internet enabled phone barely useful. While I'm knocking around in S.Korea, I can honestly say I have no need to internet while I'm roaming. While I'm in New Zealand, I NEED internet while I'm roaming if not just to get the bus time table (Yeah buses come every 30 minutes at the least during off peak. 15 on peak).

Soooooooo, are we to deduce that the iPhone has been so popular in its first three months and its owners such ardent users of the iPhone's Internet capability that when combined with the carrier's slow data throughput, the overall "average 'Net speed" of South Korea has dropped? The tone of the article and its title instead make it sound like the iPhone is bringing the Internet in South Korea to its knees.

I think this article should be amended. Judging by the comments above, I'm not alone.

Took me a second to realize no one's speed was degraded by the iPhone, just a bunch of slow people were added to the mix skewing the results.

I find the data less useful now because I don't demand the same speed from my mobil provider that I do my wired internet provider.

Definitely a misleading headline, and the story isn't too good about clearing it up, either. Oh well -- I guess it served its purpose. I clicked on it.

Err, what's misleading about it? The average South Korean Internet speed dropped precipitously--far more than any other region measured--in a single quarter, and Akamai noted that this was probably caused by so many new iPhones coming online. Seemed like an interesting story about how a single popular device can skew averages so dramatically.

Next some backwater of a country will report they have the fastest internet because they don't have cell phones... Mobile Internet and Home Internet shouldn't be grouped together. What's next? North Korea will claim to have the fastest Internet because they don't allow iPhones?

But it's not a misleading headline! The iPhone *is* being blamed for this statistical change. The headline couldn't be more clear and honest

Technically that is true.

But we know in our generation of jumping to conclusions and over reacting that the headline will probably be read or interpreted as "Apple iPhone is slowing the Internet in Korea!" which conveys a different idea.

Do you guys think that wireless data just comes from some magical well? Where buckets of wireless data are scooped out each day?

The towers are still linked into the the rest of infrastructure.

I am in no way accusing Ars of bad journalism, but I think the people you are ridiculing still have a point. If I have a 1 Gb connection but I have a 3G phone, a straight average statistic would put my speed at ~500 Mbps, which would, perhaps unintentionally, obfuscate my actual situation. Now say I had ten 3G phones (for some reason). That would put my average speed at a little over 100 Mbps. If this were all the information given, it would not make me quite the object of geek envy that I would be if people in my town knew the whole truth instead of just a piece of it.

Apply this scenario to worldwide statistics, and you can see how the broadband ranking system might be somewhat misleading. For example: there are two countries with the same average land line speed, but country A has smartphones and country B does not. Country A is superior in technology, connectivity, and availability of information, and is exactly equal to B regarding access to the higher speeds of land lines, but it is ranked below country B anyway.

Definitely a misleading headline, and the story isn't too good about clearing it up, either. Oh well -- I guess it served its purpose. I clicked on it.

Err, what's misleading about it? The average South Korean Internet speed dropped precipitously--far more than any other region measured--in a single quarter, and Akamai noted that this was probably caused by so many new iPhones coming online. Seemed like an interesting story about how a single popular device can skew averages so dramatically.

I agree, this one just shows the dangers of not understanding your data when producing statistics. Not at all like your, shall we say, slightly more contentious recent headline.

Mobile internet, before the iPhone, was fairly lowly patronised in Korea. It was expensive and very limited. Prior to the launch of the iPhone it was estimated that there were only a couple of hundred thousand smart phones in SK. The iPhone launched and sold more than 500 000 in 4 months. At around the same time, or just before, the Samsung Omnia 2 was launched. It has sold more than 600 000 units. Throw into that a Blackberries and Lg smart phones and the uptake of smart phones is now up around 1.5 - 2 000 000 phones. All of them surfing the web far more than any mobile device has ever done in SK. No wonder the system, especially KT's, is feeling the stress. No one thought the iPhone would be successful here, so they didn't adequately plan for it.

I didn't realize wireless broadband was included in these statistics. That could also be a big hindrance for the USA. Our biggest wireless provider uses CDMA which is slower than GSM on average but works over longer distances. Which is necessary because our nation is less dense.

Why are mobile speeds being grouped together with land line speeds? The data seems pretty useless averaged together.

How are Akamai to know if an end user is on a mobile connection or a land line? Or even broadband or dialup for that matter? For any one user all they can say for sure is that they're on an internet connection of some kind and they're downloading content at X speed. Some further work based on the IP address of the user would allow them to split the data into per-country and per-provider sets but anything more than that would be guesswork.

Took me a second to realize no one's speed was degraded by the iPhone, just a bunch of slow people were added to the mix skewing the results.

I find the data less useful now because I don't demand the same speed from my mobil provider that I do my wired internet provider.

Definitely a misleading headline, and the story isn't too good about clearing it up, either. Oh well -- I guess it served its purpose. I clicked on it.

Err, what's misleading about it? The average South Korean Internet speed dropped precipitously--far more than any other region measured--in a single quarter, and Akamai noted that this was probably caused by so many new iPhones coming online. Seemed like an interesting story about how a single popular device can skew averages so dramatically.

The title is not misleading per-se, it's just easy to misinterpret it as "iPhone causing people's connection to slow down" instead of "averaged speed drops due to addition of slow iPhone connections to the pool". That extra D at the end of averaged would have made a difference (to me at least - I mistakenly assumed the former myself.) Not a big deal, just clarifying.

Eh. All this really proves is that lots of people aren't too bright. Since they seem to get insulted that the article says something literally true, with little embellishment, and they misinterpret.

For the people bitching about lumping mobile and wired connections together... In particular: TreFitty.

You can't honestly say that people don't use the internet on their phones in S korea, when the publisher of information only has access to the media they themselves serve. Try to figure out what akamai is and how they do business. Once you do that, you will notice that the can only sample peoples connections because they are using said connections.

Given the fact that people actually use their phones' data connections, isn't it relevant for companies that rely on akamai and other internet media hosting companies to know what kind of speed their target audience has?

Geek envy/cred was the last thing they were thinking of when they released these numbers...

A few folks from Korea seemed to have pitched in about what's really happening here, but I'll add a bit more (yes, I'm in Korea and am typing up this comment in a commute bus... with iPhone).

Statistics. Korea(that is to say South Korea exclusively) has about 50 million people and almost as much cellphones. Before iPhone launch,not only smartphone accounted for less than a percent of overall, but CDMA/WCDMA data usage were incredibly low due to prohibitive rate schemes.

That was single-handedly changed with iPhone launch on November 26. While the total price is somewhat hefty, regular iPhone plans included a relatively good dosage of free data, and iPhone is arguably the first cellphone launched in Korea that you could more or less surf Internet easily and with less of a fear of getting exorbitant bill the next month.

The default plan called iSlim costs USD40 a month giving you 200 minutes of voice, 300 texts (SMS, MMS), and 500MB of data. On top of that you pay USD20 for 24 months for the cost of the device, in case of the most expensive 3GS 32GB model. 16GB goes for USD5 less.

So that is about 480 bucks and 360 bucks total for the phone, respectively. Tax included.

There are more expensive plans and some effectively make the phone cost 'free'.

If you want to be free of this sort of ready-made plans, you can do that, too, and the device will cost you a total of around USD650, paid over 24 months period, for 32GB model. USD540 for 16GB one.

Compared to other 'premium' phones out there, iPhone is doing okay in terms of cost. Tad expensive in general but word of mouth got strong and lots of folks opted for iPhone instead of competing devices.

Anyway, the sales went like a bang and 500 thousand iPhones got activated in 4 months. The biggest competitor was the hometown manufacturer Samsung's Omnia 2 series. The first version came out more than a month before iPhone launch but only managed to activate just as much units as iPhone did(500 thousand) when combining all three carrier versions(the 600 thousand figure is for units shipped to carriers). iPhone only came out for KT in terms of carrier, so you can tell how strong iPhone did in Korean market. Nevertheless, it basically sparked a smartphone craze here. Just two devices combined add up to a million.

Obviously, mobile data usage simply skyrocketed. The carriers couldn't keep up but users just kept piling up. KT has in turn furiously promoted the use of its 20,000+ hotspots called Nespot and the portable Wibro-to-WiFi relay unit called Egg to divert the choking bandwidth usage. The latter gets you 30GB of data for USD20 per months so it's not bad.

Took me a second to realize no one's speed was degraded by the iPhone, just a bunch of slow people were added to the mix skewing the results.

I find the data less useful now because I don't demand the same speed from my mobil provider that I do my wired internet provider.

Definitely a misleading headline, and the story isn't too good about clearing it up, either. Oh well -- I guess it served its purpose. I clicked on it.

Err, what's misleading about it? The average South Korean Internet speed dropped precipitously--far more than any other region measured--in a single quarter, and Akamai noted that this was probably caused by so many new iPhones coming online. Seemed like an interesting story about how a single popular device can skew averages so dramatically.

From the title, it isn't clear why the average is falling -- is it because the iPhone just has a slower connection that is being averaged in with faster connections or is it because the iPhone is somehow reducing the speed of other people's connections? Combine that with the use of the words "plunged" and "blamed" which imply something bad has happened, and it's natural to presume that the iPhone is generating negative externalities.

Basically, the meat of this story is that when a bunch of below-average numbers are averaged in with the existing average, the average falls. Is that newsworthy? No, not even remotely. The only newsworthy aspect of this story is that apparently there are a lot of iPhones being sold in Korea. So a more appropriate headline would have been "iPhone Popularity in Korea Reflected in 'Net Average Speed"

I don't agree that the headline/article is misleading, I think it might be a little ambiguous though. In the English language 'average' has a couple of different meanings, and the way it is used here it's just as easy to read that the average (meaning ordinary, normal, model M1A1 home internet connection) connection is now 24% slower (ie: where you were getting 25Mbps, you're now getting 19Mbps) or that the average (meaning the statistical mean) speed is now 24% lower.

That's the trouble with the English language, a lot of room for ambiguity. Do I fault the author? No, it's just a consequence of the language and perhaps a poor choice of words (though it'd be nice to have a link to the source article to compare how it's written there).